Impressions of Secret Citadel

So,  I don’t have a heck of a lot to say re: the readings this week. I think the reference to time and space is quite evident below but the readings did not inspire these thoughts. Since the gallery visit last week, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much Patterson’s stop-motion reminded me of a Tool video. I’m not sure why exactly. Possibly because I don’t have a lot of reference points for stop-motion. I did wonder, however, if Patterson would have been influenced by this video.

I felt many connections with the artist through his work. We are roughly the same age, and we are both from Saskatchewan. This might not seem like that big of a coincidence, but Saskatchewan is a very large, and at the same time, a very small place. There are only 1 million people in the entire province. When you’re from “Sasky”, aka the 3 O 6, and you meet someone else from Sask., you always ask who they know, because it always turns out you have a friend or acquaintance in common.

I also grew up in very small towns in Sask., my school experience was also very similar to that depicted in Secret Citedel. The car accident scene he depicted is also a very common occurrence for teenagers in Saskatchewan. There is a driving culture on the prairies. Everyone drives and everyone has a vehicle. I imagine it to be a lot like Northern BC. In that respect. Since everyone drives on the prairies, and since the vast majority of roads are gravel and not pavement, and since driving conditions are terrible for the winter months, it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t been in or affected by a serious car accident, or handful of serious car accidents.

Anyway, Tool was HUGE in Saskatchewan in the 1990s. Of course, they were a big band everywhere, but for some reason I feel like their per-capita popularity among teenage males in Sask. was higher than other places in Canada. I would have been 14 when this video was released, and Patterson would have been very close to that age.

So, without further ado, and with no meaningful contribution to computational poetics…..

….Oh, and if you are not familiar with Tool videos, you should check more out. They are all very strange, and nightmarish, and employ very unique mixes of film and animation.